The Secret Project

My uncle is a car junkie.  He knows probably everything there is to know about cars.  He races, he builds, he restores, he maintains.  It didn't surprise me when, at my cousin's bridal shower, my aunt (his wife) confided in me that he had a secret project he was working on, that his siblings (my mother and her two sisters) weren't supposed to know, but that she just had to tell someone because it was eating her up.  So I was let in on the secret, or more precisely, the existence of the Secret Project.  I didn't know much else other than that.  But knowing him, I knew it would be car-related and it would good.

The timing of my great-aunt's death was perfect (if such a concept exists) in that it occurred shortly after The Secret Project was completed.  She was my mother's aunt, which meant her siblings would be together at her memorial service.  So the morning before the memorial service, my uncle and his sisters gathered at his house for The Big Reveal: an impeccably restored 1947 International flat-bed pickup truck, emblazoned with their father's business name, from the family feed store era.

After two years of hard work (a huge understatement), the Secret Project was completed save for three small chrome pieces of trim which he'd reserved for each of his sisters to put in place, making the whole project complete.  The gesture was, in a way, a gift to them, and also a way of including them in the build of the tribute to their father.

Even though my place of employment is only a couple of miles from my uncle's house, I had to work that morning so that I could take the afternoon off to go to my great-aunt's memorial service.  As such, I missed out on The Big Reveal.  The truck would only be around about another week before being taken across town for longer-term storage, so I was lucky to find out my mom would be visiting my uncle this weekend to have him change her oil and perform a few other maintenance items on her car.  I was able to tag along this time and was blessed with a beautiful sunny day for taking photos of the truck.  Here are a few:

The Secret Project: 1947 International flat-bed pickup truck

Original placard of instructions for driving the truck.  Sounds complicated.

The truck's grille, which is where the final pieces were placed by my mom and her sisters.

One thing I truly cherish from my mother's side of the family is the importance they place on maintaining close family bonds.  This is more than a restored truck -- it is a tribute to the family, to their father, and to his legacy.

Nova (like the Chevy)

My husband and his college roommate got a dog while they were still in their Junior year of college.  She was the runt of the likely accidental litter of pit bull puppies; the one they'd originally picked out was a bigger, stockier boy.  Even though they'd reserved the boy, he'd been taken by someone else by the time they arrived to take him home, and the little girl was the only one left.  When my husband and his college roommate graduated, the dog went with my husband.  And now she is mine, too.

Her name is Nova, like the Chevy (but "like the Chevy" is not part of her name).  She has grown to be quite athletic and lazy, loving and unsure, friendly and shy, obedient and difficult.  She is a lot of opposites.  Overall, she's a very good dog and gets loads of love and praise from people who know her.  One feature that catches the eyes of strangers is her brindle coat.  The stripes are fun.

On a Monday when I stayed home sick with a nasty cold at the end of summer, I took the opportunity to spend some time outside in one of the few remaining warm sunny days, hoping some rays and vitamin D might help me get over my cold.  At the very least, it lifted my mood.  Of course while I relaxed outside, Nova poked around the yard, doing whatever dogs do.  Here are a few photos from that day: leafy branches of our 200+ year old oak tree reaching toward the sky, a portrait of Nova, and Nova rolling in the grass.

Leaves not quite ready to fall.

In this photo, you can see her muzzle is starting to turn gray.  Only a year ago the gray was confined to her chin.

Something about that grass...

Blooms

The first bud on my Doritis pulcherrima opened this week.  The vibrant magenta color always amazes me.  How can something be naturally so bright?  Doritis plants produce flowers that are only about a half inch to 3/4 inch across and have such a dainty structure to them.  Their colors typically range from white, to pink-and-white, to bright solid pink, to a soft lavender.  My plant is the bright solid pink.

As a side note, there is some debate about whether doritis is its own group of orchid, of it they really fall under phalaenopsis. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the arguments, but if you google "doritis pulcherrima" and you get results for "phalaenopsis pulcherrima", it's the same thing.  Since I've known my plant as "doritis" since I bought it, I intend to continue referring to it as such.

This first flower that opened has an odd phenomenon occurring.  It's almost like a siamese twin where there are three extra petals and a duplicate column and anther.  I've seen this doubling of sorts occur on other orchids before, usually at the big-box stores and assumed there was something genetically wrong with the plant.  I've never seen it occur on any of my own plants until now.  This plant has bloomed many times and all looked normal.  So maybe it's a random occurrence and doesn't have a whole lot to do with the genetic health.  Who knows.

Here are a couple of photos of the doritis.

Dor. pulcherrima

Here is another photo of the Phrag, which I took this morning.  This is bloom #2 and I saw another baby bud tucked up in the sheath, so there will hopefully be at least one more flower after this one drops.

Phrag. fischeri x besseae

A Long-Awaited Reward

I bought my first orchid in 2009 after seeing my mom enjoy her modest collection for the couple years prior.  Instantly, I was hooked.  Since then, my collection has ballooned to between 35 and 40 plants, which are all kept on two sofa tables and some empty kitchen counter space.  My collection consists of a variety of types: phalaenopsis, doritis, paphiopedilum, phragmipedium, stanhopia, vanda, dendrobium, epidendrum, cattleya, epicattleya, among others.  It all started with a pure white phalaenopsis with the hybrid name "Funny Virgin".  In the following few months, I purchased a deep purple phal. and a green/white/purple paph., both of which which I kept for a while.  All three of these I'd found at some kind of big-box store, so they weren't anything fancy but I was impressed nonetheless.

Backstory: my husband and I started dating in college.  I graduated a year ahead of him and moved about four hours away.  Once he graduated, he luckily found a job in the same city and moved to a house about 15 minutes away from me.

About a year later, he took me to an orchid grower that he'd found online while doing some research.  He'd wanted to buy me an orchid as a gift but it was a very specific kind that you couldn't find at big-box stores.  When we arrived at the grower 40 minutes west of town, we were greeted by an older white-haired man, so friendly and happy to have customers.  He treated you like you were the only customer that had ever been there, like you were the most important.  I was immediately blown away by the enormous variety of orchids he grew at his greenhouse.  I'd heard of a few "non-standard" kinds because of my mom's collection (I say "non-standard" because you can't typically get them at big-box stores) but there were countless varieties that I had never heard of.  And they all looked so unique!  Large, small, frilly, smooth, leafy, stalky, white, purple, red, yellow, orange, pink, green, brown, spotted, solid.  The comparisons go on and on.

That first visit to the grower (first of many visits!), I think I bought six plants.  One was a phragmipedium fischeri x besseae.  Phragmipediums are a slipper orchid with a bulbous bottom petal while the rest of the petals are generally flat.  It is similar to paphilpedilums, another slipper orchid, except that they originate from different parts of the world (phrags from Latin America, paphs from Asia).  The species besseae is typically a red flower with golden yellow accents, particularly in the throat.  Fischeri is typically a pink or pink-and-white flower.  The flower in this cross I had purchased exhibits more of the coloring of the fischeri species.  It was flowering when I bought it, and in the harsh, dry Midwestern winter air (inside houses, not even considering the cold outside), the flower didn't last much more than a week, maybe two.  I figured "next year, it'll bloom again."  Next year became two years, then three years.  On a few occasions, I considered throwing the plant away.  But since it grew leaves so readily, I had a hard time giving up on it.  Eventually it had to bloom again, right?

When we moved west to our current location last spring, I trucked along all of my orchids in the back seat and trunk of my Honda Civic and drove across the country.  Most of my plants made it unscathed, which was better than I expected.  So I carried on as normal once I got them set up near a well-lit window.  And by that, I mean I proceeded to neglect them as I habitually do (I know, that's probably not the best, but it's better than over-watering!).  I was so lazy I didn't water any of my orchids for an entire month.  Then I started again.

And suddenly, a stem shot up seemingly overnight, and a bud peeked out.  It continued to grow and eventually bloomed.  I shrieked!  I could not believe that after all this time, and trying all kinds of tricks and adjustments to environment to no avail, and finally after neglecting for a month, it decided to bloom.  This is the kind of stuff that makes growing orchids so satisfying.  You put so much effort, care, and hope into the plants that they'll grow and be healthy and produce their beautiful flowers.  And when they finally do...... it's hard to put into words that feeling of triumph.

So here's a photo of my phrag in bloom.  It's a sequential bloomer, meaning it blooms one flower at a time and the existing flower drops before the next bud emerges.  Its second bloom has just opened in the other room, but this photo is of its first flower.

Phragmipedium fischeri x besseae

P.S. I probably don't use exactly correct technical terminology when I talk about orchids.  Please don't be too hard on me for that!  I still have lots to learn and will probably never sound like a plant expert (this is a hobby, not my profession), but I will try to be as clear as possible in my posts.  If you have any orchid questions, please don't hesitate to ask.  I'll do my best to answer.

Table Rock

One of my favorite outdoor hobbies is hiking.  Thankfully, Oregon is an incredible place to hike, with a vast network of trails, most (if not all) with breathtaking views.  In mid-September, my husband and I hiked Table Rock.  This is a fairly moderate hike with views of Mt. Hood, Jefferson and Three Sisters.  It was a gorgeous day to hike, with the end-of-summer weather that I love: sunny, breezy, warm but not hot, "jeans and t-shirt"-type weather.  Nova, our super-agressive, killer pit bull (kidding, she loves people as long as they pet her and give her treats; she'd make a terrible guard dog) was a trooper and completed the hike with us and was completely oblivious to most of the wildlife along the way.  Here are a few photos from the hike.

Pika - Ochotona princeps

Nova

Spider Web

Mt. Jefferson

After seeing pikas in the wild for the first time on this hike, I decided to look up some information about them.  I was surprised to learn that they are lagamorphs, not rodents, due to their second pair of upper incisors.  This grouping means they are related to rabbits and hares, which are also lagamorphs.  Who knew?  Pikas are such cute creatures and they emit this adorable little "eeee!" sound to alert each other of the presence of a potential threat (predator or territory trespasser).

The perfect storm and a $210 lesson in patience

I started this blog with every intention of writing something or posting a photo on a weekly or monthly basis.  As you can see from the dates of this post and the previous (only) post of this blog, I have clearly failed.

After roughly four years, I decided to log in and see what I'd so crudely initiated and promptly abandoned.  Besides the introductory post, I noticed I'd started a draft post with the subject "The perfect storm and a $210 lesson in patience."  Unfortunately, the body of the post was blank.  I would have to dig through archives of emails for indications of what this perfect storm or $210 lesson in patience could possibly entail.  It has been so long that I can only guess that it might have been car-related.  Regardless, I'm keeping the subject as-is for this post.  I've been through some figurative and literal storms and have plenty of patience, if that counts.

So much has happened in the last four years.  Noodle has a girlfriend named Pearl (also a rabbit).  I've gotten back into reading books on a regular basis, so I may post a few book reviews on here.  It started with an e-reader, which I still have.  Then I started reading a few paper books that I had in my possession, and eventually was hooked on paper books.  The smell, the feel.  Anyway, what else.  Got married, moved across the country, lost friends, made friends, changed jobs, cultivated new hobbies, reconnected with old hobbies I'd forgotten I loved.

Here's to hopping back on the blog wagon.